Feaver's engaging debut describes the horrors of marital break-up from within a family undergoing this particular upheaval. It is 1979, and 15-year- old Ruth chronicles the deterioration of her parents' relationship, and its effect on her three siblings, as she grapples with her own emotional changes.

The setting for this domestic tragedy is the cottage in Northumberland where the family spends its holidays - a far from idyllic dwelling without water or sanitation, whose spartan ambience only exacerbates the characters' psychological torments. For Ruth's mother, Lizzie, dealing with the grim realities of mucking out the earth-closet or cleaning up mouse droppings offers little distraction from the contemplation of her husband John's infidelity. Her desperate attempts to force him to confess that he has been seeing another woman are among the bleakest - and also the funniest - episodes in the novel. Ruth herself, while sporadically interested in whether her father will leave her mother, has the younger children - Amelia, Biddy and Jack - to supervise, and her own romance with Robert, a local farmer's son, to pursue. But Robert has an explosive family situation of his own to contend with.

All this is observed with a suitably beady eye, which spares neither the warring adults, nor their resentful brood, compelled to watch while their world is dismantled. Feaver's portrayal avoids the sentimental traps sometimes found in novels on this theme, but remains true to life.

According to Ruth by Jane Feaver
Vintage, £7.99 Buy the book here

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

Times Recommends

• The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
• Burning is too good for them
• Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong in the Race Debate by Kenan Malik